


Red Petals

by silentglare



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, davekat - Freeform, hanahaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 09:23:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16083185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentglare/pseuds/silentglare
Summary: I love him.The exact thought that went through Karkat’s mind before he started throwing up fucking petals.





	Red Petals

The thought just occurred to him one day.

Sitting, curled up in a fuzzy blanket, watching a movie when his mind started drifting to _him._ His stupid sunglasses, his dumb pretty hair, his fucking smile. Just thinking about him, when suddenly, he realized, _oh, I love him._ Then, all of a sudden, he felt sick, and raced to the fucking bathroom, bent over the toilet, feeling like he was going to throw up.

And he did.

Karkat looked down into the water, and floating above it were a couple red petals. What flower they were from, Karkat didn’t fucking know. He didn’t pay attention to that shit. And right now, he could care less, because he just threw up fucking flower petals.

Karkat got up, flushing the toilet, and then slowly walking out of the room. Kanaya. He needed to find Kanaya. She’d know what to do. He made his way to wherever the fuck she was, which was apparently with Rose. 

“Kanaya, can I talk to you for a moment?” Karkat muttered, and Kanaya glanced down at him.

“What do you need?” She asked, and Karkat crossed his arms, stealing a look at Rose, who looked equally as confused as Kanaya. She didn’t need to know what the fuck was going on.

“I’d prefer to fucking speak about this alone,” Karkat grumbled and Rose took the hint, politely excusing herself from the room, directing an entering Terezi into the opposite direction. Karkat sat down on a stool next to Kanaya.

“Are you okay?” She questioned, and Karkat sighed.

“I don’t think so,” he mumbled, “considering I just threw up fucking petals.” 

Kanaya’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth. “You are kidding me, right?” When Karkat shook her head, she removed her hand from her mouth, bringing it to her head. “How is this even possible? It’s a disease only for sea dwellers, unless due to your mutation…”

“What the fuck are you rambling about?” Karkat demanded, and Kanaya simply shook her head, getting up. She returned a few minutes later with a book, titled Hanahaki. She flipped open to a page, and then began reading.

“ _Hanahaki is a disease that only shows in sea dwellers, and is a disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals if they suffer from unrequited, or one-sided love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings, or when the victim dies._ ”

“What the fuck,” Karkat muttered softly, trying to wrap his head around what he just heard. So he basically had flowers growing inside of him or something, and they would kill him if Dave-

Oh.

“This is bad,” Karkat started panicking, “this is really fucking bad.” Kanaya bit her lip, clasping her hands together. “I guess I knew I liked him for a while, but I only just realized I _loved_ him, and now I have some weird ass flower disease?” 

“Uh,” Kanaya interrupted Karkat’s panicking. “Who do you even have feelings for, anyways?” 

Karkat stopped freaking out, looking up at his friend. “You aren’t to tell a single fucking soul about this,” he warns, and Kanaya nods, yet hesitantly. Karkat took a deep breath, and then exhaled, uncrossing his arms and putting them in his lap. He stared straight into Kanaya’s eyes. “It’s Dave.”

“Ah,” Kanaya crossed her arms, clearly thinking. She then shook her head. “This is bad.”

“No fucking shit,” Karkat snapped, “I’m probably going to fucking die.” He stood up from the stool he was sitting on. “Is there any way to fix this?”

“Well, uh,” Kanaya looked in the book for a bit more. “There appears to be a surgery to remove the flowers, but I don’t think any of us are skilled enough to even perform it. And even if we did, you would, uh,” she hesitated for a moment, “lose your feelings for Dave. Permanently.” 

“Great,” he mumbled, making his way to the door. “I think I’m just gonna fucking, I don’t know, process this more or some shit.” He exited the room to see Terezi and Rose right by the entrance, looking guilty.

“Look, Karkat, we’re sorry for eavesdropping, but-,” Karkat cut Rose off, irritated.

“Not a word about this goes out to anyone, especially _him_ , you understand?” He asked, and the two girls both nodded, looked at each other, then got up, heading towards Kanaya.

This was just fucking great.

* * *

Two weeks.

It had been two fucking weeks since he was “diagnosed” or whatever with the disease. The amount of flower petals he had been throwing up had doubled, and his thoughts about Dave had pretty much quadrupled.

He hadn’t even known what quadrant he liked Dave in. To be honest, it was all of them. But according to Kanaya, this Hanahaki bullshit was only possible in Matespritship.

So that ended up solving itself.

But Karkat kept finding his thoughts plagued with Dave. Everything about him. Despite all this however, he found himself avoiding the Knight of Time. Why? He wasn’t even sure himself. But apparently Dave noticed, because after dinner one evening, Dave caught up with him in one of the hallways.

“Sup dude,” he greeted, and Karkat gulped. Rose or Terezi better not have told him shit.

“Hey Dave,” Karkat nodded, and started heading back towards his room when Dave grabbed his arm.

“Yo, uh, are you like avoiding me or some shit?” Dave asked, frowning. Karkat squinted.

“Who the fuck says I’m avoiding you?” Karkat inquired. “Maybe I’ve just been...fucking busy or whatever.”

“Dude, it’s pretty obvious,” he pointed out, and Karkat sighed, glancing to the end of the hallway. There was no way in hell Karkat could tell Dave the _real_ reason why he was avoiding him, so what kind of lie could he make up?

“Just been in sort of a fucking funk or something that I’d prefer not to fucking elaborate on.”

“Ah, yeah man I guess I understand that. We’ve all been there.” Dave shrugged, scratching at the back of his neck. “But like don’t forget about me, a bro gets lonely, ya know?”

“Yeah...sorry Dave,” Karkat apologized. Dave actually enjoyed his company? That was nice to hear. “I gotta uh, use the fucking bathroom now, so bye.” Karkat walked away, and when Dave disappeared from his sight, he rushed to the nearest toilet, throwing up a ton of red petals. There was ten of them, and splattered among them was a tad of his cherry red blood.

They looked like rose petals.

* * *

Karkat felt a pain in his stomach. He had been watching TV with Dave, a stupid troll romcom which was honestly not one of his personal favorites but they were running out of material to watch.

He had stopped avoiding Dave, and started hanging out with him more, which normally he would absolutely be thrilled about, except he had the stupid fucking flower disease. Dave probably wondered why Karkat had to keep using the bathroom, which was fucking embarrassing and Karkat liked not thinking about that.

He liked hanging out with Dave. The stupid fucking Hanahaki had to go and ruin that.

It had to go and ruin everything.

“Bathroom,” Karkat barely managed to choke about before sprinting to the restroom, closing the door behind him and retching into the toilet, squeezing his eyes shut. He hesitantly opened them afterwards, and what he saw shocked him.

A full fucking flower.

It was a rose.

And if the book Kanaya read was correct, then that meant the disease was entering the final stages, and Karkat was going to fucking die soon.

Great.

All of a sudden, a great pain shot through Karkat’s stomach, leading to him curling into a ball at the side of the toilet. 

And then there was a knock.

And Karkat meant to give a response but the pain was too much to bear and he couldn’t even make words come out just pathetic groans of pain.

And then the door creaked open and there stood Dave and Karkat couldn’t see through those ridiculous fucking shades but he probably widened his eyes like Kanaya did when she found out and he was probably wondering why there was a fucking rose and drops of blood in the toilet and he wasn’t supposed to find out and everything hurt his sides hurt his stomach hurt and he just wanted all of this to stop.

Eventually the pain stopped.

Karkat opened his eyes, because at one point he squeezed him shut, and sat up against the toilet seat, and there crouched Dave who was frowning.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Dave muttered, glancing at the toilet seat. “Are you okay? Why is there a fucking rose in the toilet?”

“None of your fucking business,” Karkat croaked, but it sounded pathetic, even to him. He sat up a bit more, glaring at Dave. He didn’t have to confess his undying love to him, he supposed. Just tell him about the disease. He sighed. “I have this weird fucking flower disease caused by unrequited love or some bullshit which causes me to throw up stupid ass flowers until I eventually die.”

Dave was silent for a moment, until he eventually spoke again. “You’re dying?”

“No shit,” Karkat rolled his eyes. “And the only way to fix it is for the person I fucking love to confess back, which is obviously not going to fucking happen, so I’m just going to fucking die I guess.”

“...How do you know they don’t love you back?” Dave questioned, and Karkat shook his head.

“I’m pretty fucking sure I’d know,” he muttered. This was a really awkward conversation to be having when said person was standing right in front of him.

“Who is it?” Dave asked, crossing his arms.

“Why should I fucking tell you?” Karkat snapped, but then quickly regretted it. 

Dave’s lips parted for a quick second, like he was going to respond, but it was replaced with a scowl. “I don’t know dude, maybe because I personally consider you my best fucking friend on this fucking meteor, and I just assumed you thought the same?” 

He hadn’t even fucking confessed and he was best fucking friend zoned. 

Nobody said anything.

Silence.

Both boys stared at each other, and Karkat felt himself feel a pang of guiltiness. “I’m sorry Dave,” Karkat mumbled, “this is just all really fucking stressful.”

“I know,” Dave bit his lip. “Well, I mean, I guess I don’t understand what you’re going through, but I shouldn’t have gotten angry over something you obviously didn’t feel comfortable talking to me about.”

Karkat buried his face in his hands. “It’s not that I don’t feel comfortable talking to you Dave, it’s just that it’s really fucking embarrassing.” 

“Yeah, well,” Dave shrugged, “right now, you’re pretty much dying, and I think that’s more important than something dumb like this. You don’t-,” he hesitated for a moment, “You don’t have to worry about me judgin’ you or anything, man.”

Karkat lifted his face up from his hands. Why did he have to be so fucking understanding? That was the very thing that was killing him. He suddenly felt another surge of pain, and threw up into the toilet again, another full rose. Afterwards, he felt himself feeling light-headed, and he fell into Dave, who caught him. 

“That’s fucking weird,” he heard Dave mutter, and he slowly realized that he was in Dave’s fucking arms and that was not good for his heart. But Dave also felt rather comfortable, and so the smaller boy laid his head on the taller one’s shoulders.

“Doesn’t really feel the fucking greatest either,” Karkat grumbled, “the only reason I fucking have it is because my blood is fucking mutated.”

Dave made some sort of noise, but Karkat couldn’t really fully comprehend what it was, and so they both sat in silence in the bathroom, in front of a toilet filled with two roses and some droplets of blood, which wasn’t the ideal place to cuddle but whatever. Karkat would take what he could take.

The silence eventually became unbearable, and Karkat decided _fuck it_. He had nothing to lose from confessing. He wanted this off his conscious, and he wanted Dave to know. He deserved to know. 

“It’s you.”

“What?” Dave turned his head to Karkat, who detached himself, leaning against the toilet again. 

“It’s you, you’re the one who has me throwing up flowers, you’re the one who-,” Karkat gulped. 

No going back.

“I fucking _love_ you Dave.”

Saying that must have really shocked him, because Dave didn’t say a word. He just stood there in another unbearable silence, when he decided to make Karkat have a near fucking heart attack by taking off his _sunglasses_ , revealing maroon colored eyes that were so fucking pretty it was almost illegal.

“You love...me?” Dave finally asked, and Karkat rolled his eyes. Was he deaf?

“Yes, you fucking idiot,” Karkat sighed, “now go on and reject me, I’ve already prepared myself for this or whatever.”

“Why the everloving fuck would I reject _you_?”

What.

Karkat’s mouth dropped as Dave pulled him into a hug.

“ _I love you too._ ”

Karkat pulled out of the hug, looking at Dave in disbelief. “You’re not joking, right? You actually…love me? Like, you have red feelings for me and shit?”

“Um,” Dave ran his hand through his hair, “kinda have been crushin’ on you for a while, and then one day I was like ‘woah this ain’t just a crush’ and yeah, I love you.”

Karkat kept staring at Dave at disbelief, to the point where he was unaware there were tears sliding down his face, staining his cheeks red.

“Woah, shit dude, uh-,” Dave pulled Karkat into another hug. “Don’t cry dude, I’ve got you.”

“I’m sorry,” Karkat sniffled, “this just all really seems too good to be true, and I don’t want this to end up being some sort of fucked up dream or whatever.”

“I can assure you it’s not,” Dave reassured, patting Karkat’s hair. “And I’m sorry for being a pussy and taking so long to confess that you had to do it first. That wasn’t really cool of me.”

“It’s fine,” he mumbled, “Rather now than later when I’m fucking dead. Which I won’t be anymore. Which is cool.”

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Dave nodded, and they both pulled out of their hug, Dave staring awkwardly at the ground. Karkat rolled his eyes and wiped the tears of his face, his lips forming a small smile.

“Just fucking kiss me already, you idiot.” Dave looked up at Karkat, and grinned.

“Man, it’s like you read my mind.”

“I don’t have to be a mind reader to figure out-,” Karkat was cut off by Dave pressing his lips against him, and it felt like butterflies had erupted in his stomach, except they weren’t the nervous kind, they were the overjoyed kind, because that’s what Karkat felt. Over fucking joyed because Dave Strider was kissing him and Karkat had been pretty much daydreaming about his moment for a while now.

They eventually pulled apart, a little bit out of breath, both of them gasping for air. “You have no _fucking_ idea how long I’ve waited to do that,” Karkat smirked, hugging Dave yet _again_.

“Bet,” Dave grinned, however his eyes looked very...calm. The butterfly feeling erupted in his stomach again.

“You’re fucking on, Strider.”

**Author's Note:**

> Homestuck in 2018? More likely than you think.


End file.
